Lab.gruppen amps and Tannoy loudspeakers provide clarity and power at Monterey California’s Cannery Row Brewing Company
Widely known as the setting of John Steinbeck’s 1945 novel, Cannery Row, and his 1954 sequel, Sweet Thursday, this historic area of Monterey occupies a unique niche in the nation’s cultural consciousness. In the opening sentence of the former Steinbeck describes Cannery Row in dramatically contrasting terms, calling it ‘a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.’
Today the area is a major tourist draw and marine sanctuary, home to a large population of California sea lions, an increasing number of hotels, restaurants and some few fishing companies that add a layer of modern authenticity to what is an increasingly popular entertainment hub. And although the Cannery Row of Steinbeck’s day collapsed along with the Monterey Bay fishing industry in the 1950’s, the area is now populated by a different sort of angler; people fishing for cold beers, good eats and good times.
Situated in an historic former Cannery and a one-time brothel the Cannery Row Brewing Company aims to deliver just that. Offering up seventy-three brews on tap, an extensive list of bottled beers and ciders, thirty brands of small batch bourbons and the talents of Executive Chef, Mark Ayers, formerly of the Highlands Inn and Pacific’s Edge restaurant and now culinary director of the Annual Pebble Beach Food and Wine.
“It’s a gorgeous area,” says Nathaniel DiMaggio, project manager for Coastal Luxury Management, the developer of the project. Although it does lack some of the hipper variety of establishments more commonplace in larger cities the Cannery Row Brewing Company will help fill that hole, DiMaggio believes. As well as appealing to a wide demographic with a combination of vintage industrial style, great food and beer fuelled fun in one of the buildings allegedly actually mentioned in Steinbeck’s book.
Beer fuelled fun and a reasonably comfortable dining experience don’t always go hand in hand, however. That was the motivating factor behind the choice of a suite of Tannoy V Series and CMS in-ceiling loudspeakers powered by Lab.gruppen C-Series amplifiers for the gastro-pub’s audio system.
DiMaggio’s primary concern was clear, intelligible playback of program music in both the Cannery’s restaurant and bar areas. A system that would provide maximum intelligibility and evenly distributed sound, zoned to allow a degree of control over in each area, with enough power to allow staff to bump the energy level up substantially when necessary. “We wanted the whole place to rock if need be,” DiMaggio says.
Originally DiMaggio considered a high quality brand of residential speaker, but was concerned about the amount of processing that might be required just to make the room sound decent. On the advice of Rocky Gianetta of Sacramento based Faultine Group, who designed and tuned the system, DiMaggio opted for a system comprised of Tannoy and Lab.gruppen products.
“It’s a big restaurant,” Gianetta says. “They needed something more substantial than your typical background music system loudspeaker. So I pushed him in the direction of buying a pro sound reinforcement type of loudspeaker and a large subwoofer. The dual concentric drive has benefits in every application and the trend is more and more to deploying these kind of devices,” he continues, be it in a concert setting or club application. “Right out of the box the Tannoy performs well. You don’t have to do a lot of equalization, and they have symmetry in both the horizontal and vertical axis, where drivers that aren’t coincident don’t.”
Though DiMaggio had some experience with audio technology he wasn’t sure what amplifiers were best suited to the build. Looking for a rock solid solution he went with Lab.gruppen based on the Gianetta’s recommendation. “The thing that’s cool about Lab is that it’s versatile and can do 70 volt and low impedance on the same amplifier on different channels, which was great. And they’re super efficient both for heat and electrical usage.”
“We think the labs are vastly superior to the amps that are out there,” Gianetta adds. “Lab allows you to set what kind of load you’re going to put on the amplifier per channel so you can run low impedance load or high impedance loads, because it has selectable VPL that sets the peak voltage on the amplifier.”
The system consists of one Tannoy VS218 sub mounted in a corner over the bar on a custom steel bracket, covering the entire 4000 square foot bar/restaurant. In addition, three Tannoy V8’s are mounted in ‘U’ brackets on ceiling beams in the main bar area, angled so bartenders aren’t obliterated when the system is cranked, and driven by a Lab.gruppen C 28:4. The remaining V8’s are distributed evenly throughout, covering the main dining area and entryway and driven by a Lab.gruppen C20:8X – Sound reinforcement for customer washrooms and the hallway adjacent to them is provided by five Tannoy CVS 4 in ceiling loudspeakers.
A number of third party loudspeakers are situated in an outdoor seating area built around three large fire pits. The system also includes Rane and Surge X components, Crestron System Automation and Autopatch Video distribution.
While DiMaggio describes the Cannery as ‘sports oriented’, it is not, strictly speaking, a sports bar. Sporting events will be in heavy rotation on eleven Panasonic flat screens tied into the audio system, but only special events like The World Cup or Super Bowl will be broadcast on the main audio system.
Time on the build, DiMaggio stresses, was a commodity that was in very short supply. “We started in February and wanted to hit summer. So it was a year-long project crushed into three or four months.”
All system components were supplied by Oakland based Leo’s Professional Audio, who service, among others, A-list clients like George Lucas, as well as providing design/install services of A/V, lighting and acoustical solutions for a variety of churches, schools and sporting venues. Although Graham Cooper, VP of Leo’s Professional Audio install division, regularly specifies Tannoy and Lab.gruppen for his own projects, this time out his mandate was very basic. “Pretty much, ‘“here’s what we need and we need it NOW,” he says with a laugh, adding that Leo’s Professional Audio technician, Gordon Fava, also worked on the Cannery install, loading and terminating the rack.
Correspondingly, the installation of the audio system was undertaken simultaneously with the fast track renovation, during which great care was taken to uncover the building’s original industrial character. “It’s all concrete flooring and brick with sixteen foot ceilings, but highly designed,” DiMaggio explains. Right down to details such as custom floor tiles inset with individual pennies placed heads up, a ten-foot high industrial door, blackened steel window grates and a veritable neon museum made up of beer signs dating as far back as the 1940’s – Vintage style inside and out.
“Essentially I tried to take everybody I trusted, who was familiar with the product and go with what they suggested. We heard Lab.gruppen made the best pro amps you could buy and that Tannoy is the smoothest commercial speaker you can get your hands on.”
The result sounds as good as it looks. Freshly launched in June 2010, the Cannery Brewing Company has hit it out the park in terms of response from locals. Within 20 minutes of opening the restaurant was at capacity and the business continues to attract a crowd.
For DiMaggio’s part, he had never heard of Lab.gruppen or Tannoy prior to this build, he explains, but is so pleased, he intends to use Tannoy and Lab.gruppen again in an upcoming project, a yet more upscale restaurant called 1833.